Thucydides Quotes

Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet life. To describe their character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.

You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.

You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely.

The people made their recollections fit in with their sufferings

We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this find everything hostile to him.

We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing

The Chaonians and the other Barbarians advanced in the centre; on the right wing were the Leucadians, Anactorians, and their auxiliaries; on the left was Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots.The three divisions were a long way apart, and at times not even in sight of one another.

The Hellenic troops maintained order on the march and kept a look out, until at length they found a suitable place in which to encamp; the Chaonians, confident in themselves, and having a great military reputation in that part of the country, would not stop to encamp, but they and the other Barbarians rushed on at full speed, hoping to take the place by storm and appropriate to themselves the glory of the action.

The Stratians perceiving their approach in time, and thinking that, if they could overcome them before the others arrived, the Hellenic forces would not be so ready to attack them, set ambuscades near the city. When they were quite close, the troops came out of the city and from the ambuscades and fell upon them hand to hand.Whereupon the Chaonians were seized with a panic and many of them perished; the other Barbarians, seeing them give way, no longer stood their ground, but took to flight.

(Book 2 Chapter 81.3-6)

it is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well and look up to those who make no concessions.

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.

Melians: And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?

Athenians: Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.

Melians: So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.

Athenians: No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.

Melians: Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?

Athenians: As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.

At times Thucydides may be clearly mistaken in both detail and interpretation, but the extent of his accuracy and analysis astounds in a world where travel was difficult, written sources rarely available, and the physical obstacles to the writing of history substantial.

if one follows one’s self-interest one wants to be safe, whereas the path of justice and honour involves one in danger.

And the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest advantage.

it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population;

The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos...The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.